Mike C

No publisher wants a book to fail (a failed book is a financial loss) but it's often a question of taking calculated risks with a limited budget. Nobody has an unlimited amount to spend on advertising and promoting. This gets worse as you get lower down the publishing food-chain. The small houses who pick up all the unagented stuff are the ones least likely to be able to afford to make a splash for a book. Writers are expected to be their own publicists. At the other end of the scale, a writer I know who signed to Harper Collins for a HUGE advance (for a first novel) has had his website revamped, a publicist appointed and a multi-state US book signing tour arranged - all at the publisher's expense. His book was their lead book for spring this year, which means that pretty much the full might of their publicity machine was thrown behind it.

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Non Serviam

Well, I understand that but it's outside my experience.

I mean, there are very few published writers further down the food chain you mention than yours truly! Outside my very slightly successful self-publishing venture, I've a grand total of one (1) work that's sold as a standalone publication (as opposed to being anthologised). And that's a small print-run from a microscopically small publisher.

And yet they find the resources to advertise it. It's not just left on the game-store shelves for the buying public to find if they can be bothered to hunt through the racks; there are advertisements in the relevant magazines, reviews, the whole nine yards. Because tiny though it is, it matters to them.

I literally can't be the publicist. I'm in the UK, the publisher's in Wisconsin, the audience is across the US.

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lin

Well, a tightly defined niche market is ripe for promotion, NS. It's easy to target the market for games or jet skis. Much harder to carpetbomb all potential readers of a bestseller.

But this means you CAN promote. Gaming is a bonanza of websites and forums where you can do publicity from England or Timbuktu.

Try thinking reverse on the publishers' dilemma of publicity. They can't roll out a pony show like Mike described for every book on their list. They pick and choose. The author has motivation to pick up the slack.
Actually, if you think about it, a lot of where the traditional big publishers seem to be heading is towards ONLY selling books that benefit from blockbuster publicity. This would mean a shrinking of lists. Not a good thing.

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Non Serviam

Yeah. And hobby publications can charge more for the wordcount. ($19.99 for 40k words, thank you sir, why not buy a dozen, they make great gifts!) That's presumably where the marketing budget comes from.

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Phenix&Phenix

While it is great for us to be able to point to a number of best sellers as former clients, almost any publicist will tell you that they don't have direct control over book sales. Publicists don't handle distribution, set the price point or design the cover. Good publicists will never push an author toward hiring them on the sole basis of ROI from book sales. Often there just isn't enough margin there. Most authors that do make the decision to hire a publicist do so because they are looking at it as a long-term investment in their career as an author (a combination of sales, visibility, platform and building their portfolio).

Though we don't control sales (and therefore don't track specific numbers other than looking for clients on industry best seller lists), we do a number of things to try to impact that area of return for authors. One major thing that we do is stay in touch with the sales team at the author's publishing house to make sure they know of significant bookings ahead of time. Often knowledge of such bookings in advance can directly impact sales to specific markets.

We also design strategies to reach specific target markets. Professional firms don't take a throw mud on the wall and see what sticks approach--they work backwords from specific demographics to hit the media outlets that reach those markets. Again, with an eye on getting a book in front of the audience most likely to buy the book.

I'll stay out of the debate regarding the merits of hiring a publicist but I did want to answer your question, Lin.

BWE

They did get her on Oprah.

Trash book though.

mammamaia

for the same reasons producers will spend millions shooting movies that end up on the shelf... they don't want to throw good money after bad and for whatever reason/s, they feel it won't make back the cost to release it, so would rather take the loss and hold onto it till some later date, or till whenever, just in case it might become more 'viable' down the road...

that practice is somewhat less common nowadays, with many of the films not good enough for general release ending up in the video stores... but plenty are still left to gather dust in the vaults...

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